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The purpose of this paper is to provide new and deeper insight into how creative knowledge processes are facilitated in multidisciplinary groups working with innovation in knowledge-intensive organizations.

Data were collected through an ethnographic fieldwork following two groups in a Norwegian oil and gas company and one group in a Norwegian research institute working with innovation. The analysis is inductive and conducted within a qualitative framework seeking to go deeper into the complexity of the facilitation of creative knowledge processes. The analytical framework is sociocultural and underscores how new knowledge and ideas are facilitated in the tension between different voices.

Analyses show how the leaders of the groups facilitated imaginative and creative processes through open dialog by giving room for diverse disciplinary knowledge and stimulating different roles in the groups. The diverse experiences of the occupational disciplines in addition to four complementary roles that ensured group dynamics, stimulated polyphony and creative tension in the groups. This creative tension enhanced the groups’ imagination, which again enabled innovative idea development.

This contribution is limited by looking at three groups in two organizations. On the premise that model generalization depends on extensive empirical data, the current paper should be considered as preliminary/exploratory research that aims at investigating how creative knowledge processes leading to innovative ideas are facilitated in knowledge-intensive organizations.

The paper offers a practical contribution in how leaders can facilitate such creative processes leading to innovative ideas. The paper is a contribution to leadership as a relational and dialogical practice.

The way the creative knowledge processes are orchestrated is visualized in a phase model. The paper contributes to new conceptualizations and thus theory development of leadership by offering polyphonic orchestration as a concept and a way of understanding facilitation from a sociocultural perspective.

The aim of this article is to investigate the creative knowledge processes which are often invisible in innovation work.

An ethnographic field study was conducted following three multidisciplinary groups; two groups in an Oil and Gas Company, Statoil and one group in a Research Institute. Data collection included observations, field conversations and formal interviews.

Creative knowledge processes develop over time in six different phases of initial innovation work. The article discusses the characteristics of communication and knowledge work in these phases. It was concluded that the creative processes peak in the three middle phases, and these phases can be seen as a separate “Room of Opportunity”.

This study is limited to three groups, but the pattern of phases is consistent across all groups studied.

This study shows that knowledge diversity in groups does not automatically lead to creativity and underscore that group members’ ability to learn from each other is crucial for the quality of new ideas. To develop innovative ideas, groups must ensure a knowledge platform and challenge present knowledge by balancing alterity and intersubjectivity in a circular movement.

The findings presented in a model “Room of Opportunity” show that creative knowledge processes develop in phases and peak in a separate room. This is a new way to understand early innovation work, and the model is a contribution to how such invisible processes can be visualized and facilitated.